The Sorensen Monologues

Archive for October, 2011

Posting this to the blog a bit late due to travel. I’ve been meaning to do this cartoon for years, and now happened to be just the right time. It has always bothered me that radical ideas are seen as mainstream because they are spouted by bald men in suits. Meanwhile, supporters of the New Deal — a 75-year old set of programs — get dismissed as wacky, dirty hippies.

For your extra amusement: while checking out the Hermès website, I came across — I kid you not — a $1,400 leather iPad holder. The 1% need only apply!

The “Protect Life Act” was back with a vengeance last week, not that you’d know it given the scant amount of attention it seemed to get. Maybe Republicans are trying to bore us with their never-ending displays of unborn baby-kissing so that we simply stop noticing when they pass bills deeming women’s lives expendable.

Even though the bill would face an Obama veto, House Republicans apparently considered it a higher priority than a jobs bill. But here’s the real kicker: just one week earlier, the House passed H.R. 2681, which exempts cement plants from the Clean Air Act and encourages the burning of industrial waste. Via Earthjustice:

“Does the House of Representatives think that not enough babies are being born with developmental damage due to mercury poisoning?” asked Earthjustice attorney James Pew. “The House essentially just opened up all the doors and windows in homes across the country and urged polluters to blow their toxic emissions right in.

So evidently we should sacrifice a mother to save a fetus, but pumping that fetus full of heavy metals is just dandy. Okay, then! I really wanted to work this point into the cartoon, but there’s only so much inanity you can address in four panels.

I wasn’t sure which aspect of Cantor’s comments, made at the Values Voter Summit in Washington DC, was more troubling: the hypocritical dissing of Occupy Wall Street protesters in language that could very well apply to the Tea Party, or the more general pooh-poohing of street protest in the age of Citizens United. When you have a Supreme Court that considers unfettered corporate cash to be “free speech” every bit as much as a protest sign scrawled with a Sharpie on a piece of torn cardboard, ordinary Americans are up against some tough competition in the political expression department. Maybe we could funnel money to fly-by-night front groups like the big boys if only we had decent-paying jobs. Until then, Mr. Cantor, I suppose we’ll just have to be uncivilized.

On a purely artistic note, this was my first time drawing Cantor’s bony skull-face. I knew this day was coming, and I’m pretty happy with how it came out. He and Rudy Giuliani should have a skull-face face-off. Not sure how that would work exactly, but I’d rather not think about it too hard.

For more on Cantor’s ties to the financial industry (among other things, his wife was a VP at Goldman Sachs), check out this WaPo article.

In the comments to last week’s cartoon blog post, reader Nick furnished this screenshot from e Simpsons episode, which bears an eerie resemblance to the first panel to last week’s strip.

Pretty eerie, huh? I have no memory of that Simpsons gag, even though I probably saw that episode at some point. But to give credit where credit is due, I thought I’d post them both here. The placement of the well is especially mind-blowing, but I would add that that’s where it goes, composition-wise.

Here’s my first effort at drawing Rick Perry, for the Dallas Observer.

It was actually used as part of a fake t-shirt design (“elephant walking” is a Texas A&M term, I have learned):

Won’t it be refreshing when we no longer have presidents or presidential candidates whose caricatures lend themselves to wearing cowboy hats and waving sixguns around? Unfortunately, I don’t think that will be anytime soon.

This one was informed by this recent NYT article about a lovely new bipartisan plan to reduce the deficit. As though we’re going to make up for the Bush tax cuts and trillion-dollar wars by selling off post offices. It’s a market absolutist’s dream come true.

The attack plan shown on the computer screen in the third panel is taken directly from the war room in “Dr. Strangelove.” At least one reader thought I was depicting a military strike on Canada. It does look a bit like Canada, I have to admit. But fear not, northerly neighbors! That general is still fighting the Cold War. You’re safe.

I drew this cartoon at the home of “Troubletown” cartoonist Lloyd Dangle while on a recent trip to the Bay Area for a comic convention. Lloyd, who recently retired his strip, did not seem to envy me one bit as I burned the candle at both ends to make my deadline.